Bush and McCain Both Flip For Offshore Drilling The day after McCain announced that he now favors offshore drilling, the president suddenly follows suit. He's calling on Congress on Wednesday to end a federal ban.

What real journalism looks like

The Washington Post has a great A1 article examining yesterday's argument between Obama and McCain on giving detainees the right to seek habeas corpus. The piece got the politics right, usefully contextualizing the advisers involved in the back-and-forth, but also gave a nuanced discussion of the policy dispute, and even attempted to quietly adjudicate the argument and provide readers with a real-world baseline.

More below.

Phase II: What Bush Said, What He Knew  Besides the simple absence of intelligence, it has also been revealed that the Administration advanced arguments in contradiction of what the intelligence actually showed, in making its case for war.

More news below.

Obama is the nominee

"Tonight, after fifty-four hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end," Obama says in his victory speech. "Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States."

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...
Superdelegates Flock to Obama  http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...

Happy news to start with From the Reuters blog:

"During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama --a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School -- was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office.
"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama."

I find myself salivating.... http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/200...

Less happy stuff below.

McCain's Thursday Night Preacher Massacre  Fresh off the defenestration of Rev. Hagee, now he's dumping Rev. Parsley, the right-wing preacher-power-broker of Ohio, who says -- inter alia -- that America was founded to destroy Islam. http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...
But as David Corn points out, the Parsley story was broken two weeks ago by Brave New Films, which unearthed the video of Parsley's anti-Islamic rants, and Mother Jones, which distributed the story on its website. McCain obviously knew about Parsley's views after that, but he didn't care. He only cared when it showed up on network TV and became an embarrassment to him. So much for a different kind of politics.http://www.motherjones.com/washingto...

John Hagee to John McCain - you can’t fire me I quit  http://www.benedictionblogson.com/20...

Chuckles and sighs follow below.

So, what are the McCains hiding? Cindy McCain was asked about releasing her tax returns, on the Today show, and reiterated that she would never release them -- ever -- even if she becomes First Lady:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vZi6...

We're All Hacks Atrios is right

It's important to remember that none of us are above the fray, that we all have hackish tendencies to suppress information which doesn't fit our worldview and privilege information that does. We're more likely to excuse behavior from people we like and exaggerate the ills of people we don't like. I try to fight hackish tendencies especially during this intra-Dem battle, but I don't claim to have superhuman Nonhack powers.

For the record, I make no effort to be above the fray nor any pretense of being fair or balanced.  I'm not only a member of the Hack Club for Men, I'm the president.  It's good to know your own filters....

More hackery below.

Obama Romps in NC; Hillary Squeaks By in Indiana  The two primaries ended as many polls predicted: with Clinton winning Indiana and Obama winning North Carolina. But Obama won with a double digit lead, while Clinton eked out a very narrow victory. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/20...

Gas tax pandering didn't work, the arithmetic is even more stacked against her than ever, the cable talking heads have almost unanimously declared her dead, Tim Russert says she's cancelled her morning TV appearances, and speculation is rife that she might finally drop out. Maybe the game changed tonight after all.

It's been pretty clear for over a month that Hillary's only chance to win was to hope that Obama got hit by a meteor or something. In the end, though, he got hit by several meteors and it still didn't knock him out. Short of Obama literally keeling over from a stroke, I'm not sure what Hillary has left to hope for. Maybe she's finally figured that out.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc...

More of this, and anything else I can find, below.

Terrorist Alert!   Nelson Mandela, the 89-year old Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of South Africa, one of the most beloved and respected human beings on the planet is on the US terrorist watch list.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...  I kid you not.

More outrageous, immoral stupidity below...

[editor's note, by PoliSigh]for your edumacation.


How stupid do they think we are? The bizarre spectacle of multimillionaire television journalists adopting faux working-class personae. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?...

More news below.

The man who, in my life, has demonstrated the closest thing I've ever seen to the grace of God and the example of Christ -- my dad -- is now 77, having had a stroke, suffering a bad heart and fighting leukemia.  I'm taking some time off to go visit him.  We'll go fishing.  We'll drink coffee.  We'll talk.  We'll pray.  And we'll just be together.  I tell you this so you'll understand why you may not see me post again for a week or so.  In the meantime, be good to each other.

News below.